AO3

• a strength is there is clinical evidence of patient KF he had poor STM but could process visual information normally. This supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic stores. The evidence from brain damaged patients may not be as reliable as it concerns unique cases with patients who have experienced traumatic experience
• a strength is that Baddeley did a study on dual-task performance and found that the participants had more difficulty when doing two visual tasks at the same time that when doing a visual and verbal task at the same time. The increased difficulty as both visual tasks compete for the same slave system but when doing a verbal and visual tasks a the same time there is no competition. This shows that there are separate slave systems
• a weakness is that there is a lack of clarity of the central executive which suggests the component is unsatisfactory and doesn't explain why any of the mechanisms taking place in the working memory. Baddeley said himself that central executive is the most important but least understood component of the working memory so it needs to be more clearly specified
• a weakness is that it hasn't been fully explained which undermines the validity of the model as a whole
• a strength is that there is research that supports for a key aspect of the working memory such as brain scanning. Braver gave participants tasks that involve the central executive while they were having a brain scan. They found there was greater activity in the left pre-frontal cortex and the activity increased as the tasks got harder.