Question

when watching a movie or tv show; you see the apparent movement of the people, things, etc...on the screen. what explains why you see this apparent movement?

Explanation:

The apparent movement in movies/TV is explained by the phi phenomenon (or persistence of vision, though phi is more accurate for motion perception in film). Movies and TV use sequential still images (frames) shown rapidly (e.g., 24 - 30 frames per second). The brain perceives the rapid succession of similar but slightly changed images as smooth motion, a perceptual illusion from how the visual system processes temporal information. This is a concept in psychology (subfield of Social Science) related to perception.

Answer:

The apparent movement is explained by the phi phenomenon (or the brain's interpretation of rapidly sequential still images as motion, due to how the visual system processes temporal visual information).