RW-1,
The short answer to your question is yes. It is well documented in my world (Navy Lynx) and I have seen a lot of students exhibit the tendency. We teach pilots to reduce to 60kts ground speed by 500’ overland and 1 mile out for visual ship approaches, 2 miles for GCA. They are “strongly” encouraged to hold the selected airspeed! Between ½ and ¼ mile (depending on experience, wind etc) a gentle deceleration is commenced aiming to arrive at the hover without the need for a large attitude change (bad for the inner ear and forward vis etc).
From an instructors point of view the key to a good night approach is a good visual/instrument scan and faith in the instruments. The most common fault is improper trimming (generally aft) which stuffs speed stability as soon as the pilot relaxes on the cyclic. Second most common is “rubber left arm” where the collective is subconciously raised as altitude reduces with poor references, again only overcome by appropriate visual/instrument scan.
Note: This technique is military and probably breaks a whole load of public transport regs!