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Advantages
- Research from dual task studies: we can do two different tasks at the same time, Baddeley and Hitch illustrated using lab investigations that we can easily do two different tasks that take up space in different stores. They found when participants were asked to complete a verbal task in the AL and a separate task in the CE recall is not affected, but when asked to complete two similar tasks then recall is affected, this may explain why it is hard to concentrate on two people speaking at the same time as the tasks are similar
- PET scans provide psychological evidence of different components specialising in particular tasks: Cohen et al found that brain activity was higher in the part of the brain known as the Broca's area when participants were completing a verbal task, whereas regions known as the occipital lobe are activated when participants complete a task using the VSSP this supports the different components of Working Memory
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Disadvantages
- The Central Executive is over simplified as there is not enough detail about how the CE actually controls the entire WM system or how it works modality free. If the CE controls the whole system it should have more research about its importance. It is obvious that there is an interaction between components in WM when performing tasks but it is not clear how this actually happens in real life memory. Critics feel that the notion of a single CE is wrong and that there are probably several. After having a tumour removed EVR performed well on tests requiring reasoning suggested that his CE was still intact, however had poor decision making skills, this suggests that there are several components to the CE and in EVR's case only one was damaged.
- The WM is not a complete understanding of memory, unlike the MSM it does not give a clear understanding of how the working memory links to the LTM, although Baddeley and Hitch have made attempts to address this issue, by adding the episodic buffer to WM it is still not enough. The episodic buffer is a temporary storage space which allows us to combine memories In the LTM with information held in the WM. However, it does not explain, for example, the important features of how information is transferred to and held in the LTM This limits its practical application to real life memory.
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