The article below states 'the affinity for the clay surface decreased with increasing number of ethylene oxide units'. Likely it is meant relatively to solubility in water. It further states that 'flocculation was attributed to the bridging of micelles between the particles'.
I have never heard about bridging between micelles and in particular micelles of nonionic surfactants. On contrary polyethylene glycol shells usually are associated with steric stabilization. I would explain flocculation with observed maximum at about 50 % coverage as result of shielding effective electrostatic repulsion counteracted at higher surface coverage by steric repulsion of the ethylene glycol oligomers.
Book Effect of polymers on the rheology of clay suspensions
As long as there is no proof of the opposite I would state that at ambient temperature or below cloud point of the nonionic surfactants bridging will not occur.
I think this is one likely example of what you might be looking
DOI: 10.1039/C2SM25708D
Tethered non-ionic micelles: a matrix for enhanced solubilization of lipophilic compounds
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/sm/c2sm25708d
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