The visual cortex is commonly regarded as faithfully representing the visual world. Here, Namboodiri et al. show that it can produce temporal intervals in response to visual cues so as to inform the timing of appropriate reward-seeking behaviors, a domain of cognition typically reserved for higher cortical areas. For more information, see Namboodiri et al. in Neuron 86(1), http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(15)00196-8.