They might not immediately recognize "Higgs field" per se, but lots of people have heard of the "Higgs boson" due to all the press about its discovery at CERN.

They might not immediately recognize "Higgs field" per se, but lots of people have heard of the "Higgs boson" due to all the press about its discovery at CERN. Most of them heard in the next sentence that it has something to do with giving particles mass. I'd guess the vast majority of public who is broadly interested in science has heard of it.