Learned blankness, as described, is not about recognizing specialization. It's about not bothering to notice that you already have the skills to tackle this. Like, if your mayan specialist was asked, "Hey, is this the egyptian heiroglyph known as the 'ankh'?", she can probably answer that one without having to call anyone, if she doesn't just blank out the moment 'egyptian heiroglyph' was uttered.