assigning class variable as default value to class method argument

I would like to build a method inside a class with default values arguments taken from this class. In general I do filtering on some data. Inside my class I have a method where normally I pass vector of data. Sometimes I don’t have the vector and I take simulated data. Every time I do not pass a particular vector I would like to take simulated data by default. I thought it should be an easy construction where inside my method definition I say a=self.vector. But for some reason I have an error NameError: name 'self' is not defined. The simplified construction is: