The process of metaphor understanding is affected by L2 learners＇ cultural hackground and cognitive psychology. This paper aims to explore through an investigation the influences of English learners＇ cognitive measures and cultural background on metaphor understanding. Results show that the major cognitive means employed by learners in the process of metaphor understanding include association, which is based on features of the vehicle; inference according to cultural images of the vehicle, and making use of visual stimuli. The influences of L1 culture are manifested in terms of language transfer and culture schema lransfer.