For those of us who are terrified by numbers, the idea of presiding over an auction is more than enough reason to run screaming from the room.

It's not that higher maths is required to wield a hammer (that's what it's called, by the way, not a gavel). But you do have to be able to count. Fast. In increments. While keeping track of in-person, online and telephone bidders. And while being entertaining, funny, composed and remembering your primary mission above all else: to get the highest price for whatever art, jewellery, clothing, automobile, real estate or cattle you have been enlisted to sell.

"You have to stay 100 per cent focused," said Diana Bramham, 38, a vice -president and specialist in Latin American art at Christie's who is also an auctioneer. "Your mind can't wander for even a second. You have all these things going on, but you have to look poised and calm and in control. That's a lot to do at one time."

That may be the understatement of the year, a fact that quickly becomes evident at a tutorial with Nicholas Lowry, 48, the president of, and principal auctioneer at, Swann Auction Galleries in New York.

Lowry practically emerged from the womb with a hammer in hand. The company was founded by his grandfather's nephew, Benjamin Swann, in 1941; Lowry's father, George, is also an auctioneer. The house holds 30 to 35 auctions a year, most of which Lowry oversaw before deciding it was too much. So he asked employees if they wanted to take a crack at it. Four people bit, including Alexandra Nelson, 28, Swann's communications director, and Jenelle Watler, 30, operations director, who received their auction licences last year.

The four of us gather at Swann's antique-poster-filled offices on East 25th Street. After assuring me that my innumeracy will not be an issue, Lowry hands me a copy of the Auctioneer's Book, which lists a description of the item ("lot", in industry parlance), its name, how much it's estimated to sell for, the reserve (the minimum the owner will accept as the winning bid) and any bids that have already come in via phone or the internet. It's the auctioneer's job to keep track of it all.

Bidding usually starts below the low estimate and goes up in 5 to 15 per cent increments. But each house differs slightly.

A Swann primer: Between $40 and $150, it goes up by $10. Between $175 and $500, it goes up by $25. Between $550 and $1000, it goes up by $50. Between $1100 and $2000, up by $100. Between $2200 and $6000, up by $200. Between $100,000 and $200,000, it's up by $10,000. Above $200,000, it's at the auctioneer's discretion. (This would be the maths part of the program.) Some diligent auctioneers even stand in front of a mirror and practise counting in increments. Really.

We hold a mock auction (a mocktion?), with Lowry, Nelson and Watler bidding on imaginary items. As expected, I am flummoxed by the numbers – not so much the counting, but trying to figure out the price at which to open the lot.

"Starting it low-ish encourages competition," Nelson says. "If I were to start too high, people would be discouraged and say, "Oh, well, she has a really high bid in the book; I'm not even going to touch it.' So there's an element of psychology involved."

While an arts background isn't mandatory, auctioneers should familiarise themselves with the items at hand. "If you're working in the Gap," Lowry says, "you should be able to tell somebody something about the jeans they're trying on."

Psychology is a big part of auctions, and a good auctioneer can gauge the tenor of the room. Lowry believes auctions tap into our most primal instincts.

"Imagine yourself bidding on handbags," he says. "If you were in a room, and the woman next to you started bidding on a handbag that you've been hovering over, you'd look her in the eye and you'd put your hand right up and say," in effect: 'I can spend more than you. Disappear from my life, you toad.' 

"You get at an auction, and there are two people who want something, and it doesn't matter what the price is," he continues. "It's about winning, it's about ownership, it's about dominance."

For the auctioneer, it's also about discerning body language. Is the woman in the back row bidding on the Monet or simply scratching her arm? "Because we have to know what's going on all the time, we have to be watching everybody," Lowry says. "I've been known to say, 'I'm sorry, is that a bid, or are you just fixing your hair?' "

It's exhausting. But then, I have had only an hour to study. Auction houses take months to train their people. Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams all offer fairly rigorous training programs for interested employees.

Christie's, for example, holds auction classes every two to three years. To start, Andrew McVinish, director of auctioneering at Christie's, holds "X Factor"-type competitions, in which aspirants must pass a series of auditions. "On the first, say, we'll have everyone stand up and tell us something about themselves for five minutes," McVinish says. They might be asked to role-play, picking a character out of a hat and leading an auction in character.

"It's a little like a duck paddling on a lake; they are all calm on top, but beneath the surface, they're paddling furiously," says McVinish, who also heads Christie's decorative arts team. "You've got about one to two seconds to process the information." After finishing their training, new auctioneers often apprentice alongside experienced auctioneers until they're ready to go it alone.

Nelson says she became inspired after watching Swann's senior auctioneers. "I admired them, how they controlled the room and how much fun they were having. Jenelle and I were curious; can we do this?"

It turned out, they could.